nunnery might be joined under the direction of a single abbess, such institutions tended to
become male-only houses.
In the 11th and early 12th centuries, while every French town was surrounded by
houses for monks, there might be only one nunnery in a region. Such a nunnery could,
however, become an important center for women’s intellectual life, and most women
writers of this period were nuns. As the new monastic orders began to spread in the 11th
century, nunneries were founded specifically to take the wives of men who had decided
to enter the cloister; Marcigny, affiliated with Cluny, was such a house, as was Tart,
established for the wives of Cistercian converts. But many women’s religiosity had to be
channeled in other directions before the end of the 12th century; women might establish
themselves in small cells attached to male monasteries or decide to follow wondering
preachers. Robert d’Arbrissel, for example, had a large group of women followers whom
he was persuaded to make settle down as nuns at Fontevrault.
But religious houses for women began to multiply in the 13th century, including
Benedictine nunneries but also establishments for canonesses and for such new orders as
the Poor Clares, the female wing of the Franciscan order. Because the women of such
orders were expected to follow a strict cloistered life, it was sometimes hard to
distinguish them from more traditional nuns. By the end of the Middle Ages, there were
many more nunneries than monasteries in France.
Constance B.Bouchard
[See also: BENEDICTINE ORDER; FONTEVRAULT; MONASTICISM; ROBERT
D’ARBRISSEL; WOMEN, RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE OF]
Johnson, Penelope D. Equal in Monastic Profession: Religious Women in Medieval France.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991.
Wemple, Suzanne Fonay. Women in Frankish Society: Marriage and the Cloister, 500–900.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1981.
Wischermann, Else Maria. Marcigny-sur-Loire: Gründungs-und Frühgeschichte des ersten
Cluniacenserinnenpriorates (1054–1150). Munich: Fink, 1986.
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